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On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything
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9/99
Readers' Rating Index
86/99
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77/99
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About This Book
Silver investigates "The River," or those whose mastery of risk allows them to shape—and dominate—so much of modern life. These professional risk takers—poker players and hedge fund managers, crypto true-believers and blue-chip art collectors—can teach us much about navigating the uncertainty of the 21st century. By embedding within these worlds, Silver offers insight into a range of issues that affect us all, from the frontiers of finance to the future of AI. The River has increasing amounts of wealth and power in our society, and understanding their mindset—including the flaws in their thinking—is key to understanding what drives technology and the global economy today. There are certain commonalities in this otherwise diverse high tolerance for risk; appreciation of uncertainty; affinity for numbers; skill at de-coupling; self-reliance and a distrust of the conventional wisdom. For the River, complexity is baked in, and the work is how to navigate it, without going beyond the pale. Taking us behind-the-scenes from casinos to venture capital firms to meetings of the effective altruism movement, On the Edge is a deeply-reported, all-access journey into a hidden world of powerbrokers and risk takers.
Reviews
"Unless you are yourself serious about poker, you're likely to find the author's lengthy hand-by-hand description of his successes and failures a bit tiresome ..."
"Silver might have spent more time exploring domains where expected-value thinking may be even more consequential."
"In his quest to understand people who are obsessed with risk, Silver draws on a wide range of insights ..."
"The book is an exercise in self-justification, but what it fails to justify is the assumption that mathematics can in some way predict the course of human affairs ..."
"But if you don't mind or are intrigued by the game, Silver eventually broadens his cohort."
"An enlightening study of the people who play the game of risk and win."
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